Third Way

The Third Way is a centrist political ideology that combines right-wing economics and left-wing social policies. The key tenets of the Third Way are balanced budgets, equal opportunity, personal responsibility, decentralization of government power to the lowest level possible, encouragement of public-private partnerships, improving labor supply, investing in human development, protecting social capital, and protecting the environment. Key Third Way advocate Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed that the Third Way maintained the social justice aspects of socialism while abandoning economic determinism, and Third Way economics sought to pursue egalitarianism without redistributing wealth. The Third Way was criticized by pro-laissez faire conservatives and libertarians as well as by social democrats, democratic socialists, anarchists, and communists, as the ideology was neither left nor right. Third Way politics varied by country, either affilating with social democratic or social liberal movements.